Donald Fagen, "Eminent Hipsters"

Here are a couple of reviews of Donald Fagen’s Eminent Hipsters. Here is my review of Donald Fagen’s Eminent Hipsters: If you are a dyspeptic Jew from the American northeast who enjoys the music of Steely Dan and spends a lot of time grumbling about how things are less authentic, more anesthetizing and increasingly unpleasant these days OR you are someone with a deep interest in the intricate details of what it is like to travel the country on a mid-level musician’s tour bus you will find a lot to enjoy about this book. For a man who has spent the last 40 years in extreme proximity to the adjective “curmudgeonly” there is a surprising amount of warmth and enthusiasm on display here, and the pieces (except for the one that is filled with the intricate details of what it is like to travel the country on a mid-level musician’s tour bus) are all brief enough that, just as you are starting to show the slightest signs of impatience, they make a point of not overstaying their welcome, which means this is almost the perfect book for those of us whose attention spans have been so shredded by galleries of giraffe genitalia that anything taking up more than 10 typewritten pages can be considered a longread. Anyway, I don’t think the rest of you will be all that into it, but I am fairly sure that each of us has a dyspeptic Jew from the American northeast who enjoys the music of Steely Dan and spends a lot of time grumbling about how things are less authentic, more anesthetizing and increasingly unpleasant these days or someone with a deep interest in the intricate details of what it is like to travel the country on a mid-level musician’s tour bus in our lives, and this would probably be the perfect gift (pronounced jift) for them.